Thursday, February 25, 2010

Booking Through Thursday - Why Do You Read?

btt button

Suggested by Janet:

I’ve seen this quotation in several places lately. It’s from Sven Birkerts’ ‘The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age’:

“To read, when one does so of one’s own free will, is to make a volitional statement, to cast a vote; it is to posit an elsewhere and set off toward it. And like any traveling, reading is at once a movement and a comment of sorts about the place one has left. To open a book voluntarily is at some level to remark the insufficiency either of one’s life or one’s orientation toward it.”

To what extent does this describe you?

What a depressing, pessimistic view of reading! Reading is an escape, but not because the world is so dismal. Books are a special part of the world- a part that broadens us, opens our mind and shows us something different, not because the world we live in is insufficient but because it's limited by the depth and breadth of our own experiences. Why do I read? I read because I love good writing and a good story, and it's a means of pursuing my manifold interests. And because I love to learn, and I learn something new every time I turn the pages!

More Booking Through Thursday can be found here.

6 comments:

jlshall said...

Well said! And I came up with pretty much the same response. I love that you pointed out that "limited" doesn't equal "insufficient." So true!

Anonymous said...

I enjoy good books, good stories, and enjoy how reading enhances my knowledge of the world. I don't read to escape the world, but to learn more about the varied facets of my interests and of the world. From fiction to non-fiction, reading has its stronghold in my life.

Brooke from The Bluestocking Guide said...

LOl!! I agree. I was rather tart in my response.

Here is mine

Kathleen said...

All I can say is AMEN!

Zibilee said...

I read to travel, to relate, and to understand. I think that each book holds a separate world for me to try on for size, and looking at a room full of books is like looking at room full of endless possibilities. I learn so much about the world, and the people who inhabit it by reading, and it is my single greatest joy. I don't read to escape, I read to journey.

The Bookworm said...

I agree, reading is a wonderful thing!

http://thebookworm07.blogspot.com/